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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   31369 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 14, 2025

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https://archive.ph/usLjz

The man charged with setting fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion staged the attack because he believed Gov. Josh Shapiro’s stance on the war in Gaza was leading to the deaths of Palestinians, according to a police search warrant made public on Wednesday.

For those of you who haven't caught the news, a lone individual set fire to the Pennsylvania governor's mansion over the weekend. After turning himself in, he has been charged with a number of crimes that are noted in the article.

The perpetrator is obviously not mentally well. His own mother repeatedly called the police on him warning officials that he was dangerous and unbalanced. Some reports indicate that he was on bail for assault charges at the time the arson occurred.

I make this post because a lot of hay has been made over the last decade about "stochastic terrorism", and while this doesn't fit the bill exactly, it does have me thinking about it.

Put bluntly, we all know that dangerously crazy people exist out in the world, and a significant number of them have phones, computers, and televisions. If that is something we know, what responsibility do we have, as individuals, and as a culture to self police our speech to avoid giving these peope what they believe is a call to arms? Is it constant for all people, or does it vary based upon some criteria?

What kind of self-policing do you have in mind here? This guy in particular was upset over Israel killing civilians in Gaza - you don't need to confine yourself to Hamas-endorsed sources to come away thinking Israel's gone too far, the UN Human Rights office has publicly claimed the majority of Gazans killed are women and children, and there have been multiple reported incidents of Israeli forces killing aid workers, seemingly deliberately (latest example here: https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/07/middleeast/gaza-aid-workers-killed-audio-intl-invs/index.html)

So if a dangerous potentially crazy person were inclined to be sympathetic to the Palestinians before the war started, simple honest reporting of the above would be likely to set them off. Would you suggest not reporting on foreign wars? Because that seems unworkable to me.

Personally, I don't intend any self policing. It mostly came to mind when comparing this to the pundit commentary around the "kidnapping plot" against Gretchen Whitmer, and I wanted some opinions.

I'm just surprised this isn't more common. Islamic terror attacks in the west would make a lot more sense if done under the guise of just being a part of the war in Palestine.

To that extent it will be interesting to see if there are any global events that manage to push the western public to action. A globalist world is a lot smaller, and the hands that can reach the center of power are much more diverse.

Most Islamic terror attacks in the West in the recent decade have been done under the rubric of ISIS, which opposes Palestinian nationalism and Hamas for being a distraction in their quest for the Caliphate.

Yeah. As if killing children and filming yourself lighting people on fire wasn't PR disaster enough.

You're forgetting that jews are not actually people in this context.

It's not crazy to be upset about what atrocities US enables in Gaza and Middle East more generally (the guy who did the arson may indeed be crazy for all I know). You can't prevent people talking about bad things politicians are doing for politicians' safety, that's absurd.

It’s pretty crazy to firebomb Shapiro’s house over it, since he has pretty much 0 impact on US foreign policy. But he is a Jew, so…

He was expected to be Kamala's VP running mate, so he's probably more influential than thousands of kids Israel blew up, for example.

But...he wasn't Kamala's VP running mate? And it wouldn't have mattered even if he was. How does Shapiro have any impact whatsoever on the war in Gaza?

I would at least limit the concept of "stochastic terrorism" to either direct calls for violence, metaphors or figures of speech that are strongly violent (not just using the word "kill"), or metaphors that compare someone to a great evil that cannot be handled peacefully (such as Hitler or Satan).

At that point does it even qualify under the commonly held definition of stochastic terrorism?

Stochastic terrorism is a form of political violence instigated by hostile public rhetoric directed at a group or an individual. Unlike incitement to terrorism, stochastic terrorism is accomplished with indirect, vague or coded language, which grants the instigator plausible deniability for any associated violence.

Do you reject the concept entirely? That's part of why I started this thread. A lot of people claiming their opponents are using the technique seem to act as if it's not real.

I would add that conveniently providing the residential address of people you don't like (e.g. health care CEOs) should definitely qualify.

But what if the guy is a great hockey player who unfortunately has the last name satan?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miroslav_%C5%A0atan

What do you mean unfortunately?

All he has to do is start a black metal band and become a true legend.

or Satan

There's a famous bit in "A Man For All Seasons" where the main character explains why he wouldn't engage in lawless violence against the Devil, so there are well-articulated perspectives where calling someone Satan isn't endorsing violence.

I can guarantee you that if someone gets seriously and continuously called Satan, a lot of listeners won't take that perspective. And stochastic terrorism is about when to blame someone for the actions of listeners.

Besides, I was trying to describe a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. Belief in religion is so low nowadays that comparing someone to Satan hardly means anything, unless you're Iran.

metaphors that compare someone to a great evil that cannot be handled peacefully (such as Hitler or Satan).

What if the shoe fits though?

Then stand by your convictions, admit what you're doing, and argue that it's good.

If your goal is to entice someone to murder Hitler, that saying out loud that he needs shooting is not the most efficient way to go about it, because that kind of speech is quickly shut down. Either you become personally part of a conspiracy to murder him (which might not be practical, or you might not be willing to pay the price) -- in which case you do not make any public statements beforehand, or you try to stay on the right side of the law and depend on your listeners to connect the dots. So you say that Hitler will be the doom of the German people and that he is much more dangerous than Rosa Luxemburg (a communist who was shot in 1918) ever was.

(FWIW, I am rather strictly against murdering Trump. I will not pretend I would not be happy if he died of natural causes (heart failure after ingesting viagra would be lovely) tomorrow, or if he went the way of Joe Biden, but he would be a lot more damaging as a dead martyr than as a living president.)

Admit to what? Terrorism? That's nuts.

The scale of terrorism is tiny (outside of places like Pakistan) and the scale of stochastic terrorism is tinier still. Schizos aren't very good at violence, there's no threat that a schizo is going to get an H-bomb and blow something up.

The real danger of vibes and discourse is that they effect powerful people in high office. Extinction Rebellion and offshoots might be a bit dangerous, who knows, they're very radical. Happily they seem to have died down somewhat. But the danger of radical climatism isn't from some protestors sabotaging a coal plant and doing maybe $10 million in damage, it's from politicians/media/elites doing $10 trillion in economic wrecking.

Dramatic, visible harms are overvalued and subtle, procedural/policy changes are undervalued.

Schizos aren't very good at violence, there's no threat that a schizo is going to get an H-bomb and blow something up.

Based on our real world dataset of one, who we really need to be concerned about is bespectacled autodidacts from Missouri.

Did Oppenheimer build any H-bombs? The original fission bomb, yes, but didn’t the H-bomb come later?

Chad Truman vs cuck (((Oppenheimer))). Nobody in Hiroshima cares who built the bomb, they care that it was dropped.

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